Coimbatore Corporation has started in a limited way the process to dispose of the waste it had accumulated over the years without segregating it as degradable, wet waste and recyclable and inert dry waste.
The ₹60.01-crore project, called the bio-mining process, involves conveying 9.4 lakh cubic metre waste over sieves to segregate the waste, based on size. While the finest of the segregated waste would go in a landfill, the other waste would undergo various process – either segregated and sold category-wise or sent to various companies for further processing.
The responsibility of processing and selling the waste lay with the company that had won the bid, the sources said and added that the company would take two years to completely process the 9.4 lakh cubic metre.
The Corporation had asked the company to process 2,000 to 2,500 cubic metre waste a day and would pay ₹555 a cubic metre.
The entire exercise would help the Corporation reclaim around 60 acres of land in the Vellalore dump yard, where the waste had caused such an environment hazard that the residents in the vicinity dragged the civic body to the National Green Tribunal.
The sources said the company had started the project in a limited way before going full throttle because it was yet to get power connection. At present, it was using generators to run the plant.
The Corporation had engaged a team of experts from Anna University, Chennai, as consultants to assess the progress of the scheme.
Though the project would help the Corporation dispose of most of the waste, the civic body would not be able to clear the entire 15 lakh cubic metre waste in Vellalore, said sources.
The sources said the civic body could not include the remaining six-lakh cubic metre of waste because it was left with funds to cover only nine lakh cubic metre. As a result, the remaining waste plus the 500-odd tonnes that the Corporation would dump there every day would deny a complete solution to the problem the residents faced.
